Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am interested in getting a pair of baby ball pythons and raising them up over a few years for breeding. This would be my first pair of ball pythons. This project fits in with my herp interests as I also keep a pair of jungle carpet pythons, sand boas, crested geckos, and leopard gecko. I figure if I get a morph of ball pythons I could make some money to support my hobby.

I'm thinking of getting one of these pairs:

pair of het albinos
albino and het albino
pair of het piebalds
pastel male and normal female

Do you have any thoughts on which combo would be best? worst? Would the albino market still be worthwhile in a few years?

Also, is breeding ball pythons difficult? I've only bred geckos. My snakes will breed in a year or two.

Thanks ahead of time.

i started with 10 normal ball females, then went to 1.1 pastels, then 3 100% het albino females with 1 albino male, then 3 100% het pied females with 1 pied male. i buy more females every spring and as soon as spiders come down a bit more i will be getting males of those. in the future i plan on getting into mojaves. this is just what i think. at this time you cant go wrong with pastels since about 1/3 of the morphs out there use them. just make sure you stay with quality and co.'s you can trust and not just price.

Thanks for the input. It sounds like you've got quite the ball collection going on. How do you house so many balls? If it's a rack, what size tubs/cages do you use?

I like the color of the pastel babies. Does the bright color retain into adulthood?

Thanks.

i have e simple racks from snake shacks. small, med, and a large. they only take up 1/2 of the wall in a spare bedroom, so that is nice. for the pastels i would make sure you buy from a good line and check out in person - go to shows - so you get the ' cleanest ' looking ones. blonds are suppost to maintain their colors the best but i have not seen too many blond adults.

From what I have seen the BELL Line pastels are really nice as adults. Here is a picture of a 900gram male I own. Thanks David

Awesome snake you have there. Is that a blonde or brunette in the background

Blonde, Yes my mom gave me that glass a while ago. Did you know when you get the glass wet the cloths come off....LOL....Pretty cool glass if I might say so. thanks David

They are all nice choices. Your cheapest route would be the pair of het albinos and I personally like the looks like the albinos the best. Pastels are very nice and if you could locate an adult female, you could be producing morphs much quicker. (contrary to what some people will say, while it IS possible to get a female to breeding size in two years or less, 3 or 4 years is much more common especially if you are not breeding your own rodents.) Piebalds are always nice and have finally come down to a price where they are more affordable to the average hobbyist and the prices of the homozygous animals I believe, will remain fairly stable where they are currently at. And with your current collection, the sale of just one piebald would pay for your feeding bill for the next 3 or 4 years. Another route you may wish to think about, especially if you are unsure if you will like raising ball pythons would be to start off with a few normal females. If you decide in a few years that raising balls is not for you, you can easily find homes for female ball pythons and can usually sell these much more mature females for a lot more then you paid for them as babies. I've been breeding snakes for 14 years and ball pythons for 3. I think balls are fairly easy once you get the hang of their yearly cycles, and personally I think their care and maintnence is much easier then any lizards or other bug eaters.

Mark

>>I am interested in getting a pair of baby ball pythons and raising them up over a few years for breeding. This would be my first pair of ball pythons. This project fits in with my herp interests as I also keep a pair of jungle carpet pythons, sand boas, crested geckos, and leopard gecko. I figure if I get a morph of ball pythons I could make some money to support my hobby.
>>
>>I'm thinking of getting one of these pairs:
>>
>>pair of het albinos
>>albino and het albino
>>pair of het piebalds
>>pastel male and normal female
>>
>>Do you have any thoughts on which combo would be best? worst? Would the albino market still be worthwhile in a few years?
>>
>>Also, is breeding ball pythons difficult? I've only bred geckos. My snakes will breed in a year or two.
>>
>>Thanks ahead of time.
>>

Thanks for the input. I really like the albinos best. Then again the piebalds are awesome. If I got hets for any of these I don't know if I could wait the 3-4 years. I'm leaning towards getting a pair of albinos, or one albino and one het.

What morphs do you have?

Another question: Is it easy to switch balls from mice to rats? Is it important to get them feeding on rats? I see some breeders advertise their animals as feeding on mice and some rats. I know my carpet pythons are disgusted with the smell of rats and it's been very trying to switch them over.

Thanks!

I started out with a group of female 50% possible het albinos. I later added a male het albino and last year I hatched out my first 2 albinos. I'm hoping to prove out some more of my poss het girls this year. In addition to the albinos and het albinos, I also have a pastel, some hets of green ghost, butterscotch ghost, pieds, clowns, axanthics, and some poss het carmels. But most of them are young and It'll be years before I see any more morphs other then albino.

I know what you mean about carpets and rats, I've got 4 carpets and two of them are ravenous rat feeders but the other two will turn up their noses at rats everytime. For my ball pythons, they all started out eating mice. Most of my adults are eating frozen/thawed rats and quite a few of my yearlings and second years are eating rats as well. Some on the other hand, refuse anything but live mice. I've had the best luck getting them to switch by feeding on tongs. I don't currently breed my own rodents so I have to buy live mice locally or use frozen rodents. I heat up the thawed mice to a fairly warm temperature so the pythons can 'see' the heat from the body with their heat pits. and I present them to the snakes on tongs. Once I've gotten them used to taking mice off of the tongs, I'll sneak a rat pup in there once in a while. Usually by that time they'll associate the tongs with food so they don't bother to sniff it first and will just take whatever is hanging from the tongs. I'll usually get a few more switched over every month or so. I think the key is being regular about feeding so they start anticipating feeding times and will just hit whatever I've got on the tongs.

Sorry about the book, I get a bit long winded at times.

Mark

>>Thanks for the input. I really like the albinos best. Then again the piebalds are awesome. If I got hets for any of these I don't know if I could wait the 3-4 years. I'm leaning towards getting a pair of albinos, or one albino and one het.
>>
>>What morphs do you have?
>>
>>Another question: Is it easy to switch balls from mice to rats? Is it important to get them feeding on rats? I see some breeders advertise their animals as feeding on mice and some rats. I know my carpet pythons are disgusted with the smell of rats and it's been very trying to switch them over.
>>
>>Thanks!

It sounds like you have an awesome collection. I am so jealous of your collection. With some of those hets you'll have to wait- but the wait will definitely be worth it! Good luck!

thats a good place to start.
then you might produce a super mojave, which may well be a Lucy... more mojaves and a ghost mojave....ghosts, ...
that would be a heck of a starter pair.

good luck

go with what ya like though

Mike

A pair of hypo mojaves...in my dreams!!!

I wonder when the mojaves will come down to my price range. Sometime in my lifetime, right?